"mutely" poems
Indebted shadows prey on a prayer
They drink up their glories and sins,
While contending for souls so rare
And endow nails upon my skin:
Clever born,
Hearty,
And silver to the bone.
Nevermore,
Sadly,
Now mutely grey in tone.
“Awake!
Arise!
Win our war in Rome!”
They break,
They lie,
And never came home.
Forget
Please never,
This threat
I sever,
Regret?
Too clever
to lie.
Faulty sins hoist a ****** banner
While goodness is only a trend,
And foes are convenient in manner
Convenience: a conclusive friend.
Too clever to lie
What a convenience am I
Am I: your conclusive friend;
Answer as to why
You raise the stakes high
When you have no soul to lend?
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 3:32 PM UTC
the strain of labor
the pain of toil
the ache of legs and arms
the sweating brow
drudging farmer curse the soil
mutely chide the milkless cow
the demon waits for no man.
he rages forth
renders furrows charred
the fields so dry
the rocky ground so hard
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
A little girl danced to a song
her world small and nothing wrong
And in that instant she knew that she
a dancer she would always be
Her dream since the tender age of five
she knew that she must work and strive
Stumbling, falling, she fell to the ground
hurting herself severely she found
Years later it was all just a dream
everything went back to normal it seemed
And then one day she hurt it again
but still she pushed on and didn't let it win.
For long months she endured and toiled
the pain refusing to be foiled
They all tried to make it heal
but it wouldn't, and her fate it sealed
Keeping it hidden from everyone close
even the ones she loved the most
For she was scared and very angry
didn't want to lose her dream you see
When it was all too much to shoulder
she caved in and the world turned colder.
They told her she would have to quite
her heart a candle no longer lit
She stopped breathing as the world froze
blinking numbly she arose
Sitting backstage as her music played
mutely staring as the future was made
And then the music ended
and all the dancers ascended
As she sat thinking, "is this real?"
"Why God? I just want it to heal."
Tears frozen in her eyes
as she desperately wished it was lies
Picking up a flower from the floor
all that was left of what was before.
Holding herself alone at night
the crying girl a broken sight
Losing her dream was the hardest thing
her voice she found no longer sang
What would she do now that its gone?
a uncaring façade she would have to don
All that was left was memories
she wished the unending pain would just cease
The poor little girl learned to soon
that the world was harsh and full of gloom
The hardened girl still remembers
a life she had, now ashes and embers.
She'll never forget but she will let go
telling her precious dream farewell
To this day it still hurts
but she's stronger now when it wont desert
I know this girl very deeply
because you see
its really
me.
-Esther L. Krenzin-
-Roguesong-
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 8:46 AM UTC
It’s difficult to comprehend that
this is the same skin that, a few years ago
frolicked around in bars, carelessly giving out kisses.
No fear.
Every scar carries more
ignorance,
my flesh, less young explains
the former stupidity I carried
Accompanied by confidence.
I was but a child, lost in the woods
unaware what dangerous animals lurk.
Even then, surprised by my own’s existence
Me still being here and
continuously breathing.
I was brave, but not brave enough.
The quick breaths during the
first attack.
I did not know they hit like a hammer, I
a hot blade
They were hardening fear.
Enormous, monstrous fear.
I was powerful and strong, every year
my height lowering, so that my
once clear voice turns into a
trembling
whisper.
An exhalation, kept alive by the ones
close enough to put their ear next to my
tickling lips.
What anger I contain.
How mutely I express it.
It was once powerful.
Erupted from my chest like
living fire,
burning the monsters far, far away from me.
Now it barely sparks when I’m reminded of
the long gone evil men
Mean, mean men who did mean things.
It’s not that I wasn’t fashioned to arrive at this point.
I was.
But the feet pressing onto my clay body did not help.
Now I’m dried and crooked.
My voice quiet, body
exhausted.
As I exhale smoke once more, I get inside
embrace my love and think:
**** it."
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 12:13 PM UTC
A yellowish time was walking alone
On the Hare Road in the rainy afternoon.
Is it time to discuss with coffee or ice-cream
holding the hand like a band
Touching the sorrows before putting
coins into the evening's folder?
It's time to slice time thinner and thicker
Processing pickles on the dissection table
With likings-hates, joys-sorrows, dreams-realities
before the evening flirts afternoon!
Going ahead or coming back or even standing a while
Which one is the worthless best I don't like to know?
A small seed of wrongful dream germinates mutely
From infinity and going to the end of infinity!
Never have I seen any time walking
Nor have I seen any rainy afternoon at Hare Road!
Poem 17
Book 'Beckoning Jade-Dreams' April 2007
Copyright Musharrat Mahjabeen
Mizan Publishers, Dhaka, Bangladesh
ISBN 984-8700-82-X
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 8:09 AM UTC
A Tribute
A king takes supper on a creaking deathbed. Featureless, winged creatures zoom by the dark condensed windows. Micro parasites build adobe headquarters in his soft tissue. Reaching for a plate, he groans the terabyting howl that’s prescribed with chemotherapy. Qwerty and light from the drugs, he stares at the apple on his tray. Lost in its curves, he finds himself trapped in a safari of memories. A dream devolves upon his downtrodden mind….
The canopy is populated with twittering, angry birds. Pools of social blood attract flies to the googolplex degree. He stumbles through the dell, suspicious forest while a tremulous, fiery fox stalks behind his echoing footfalls. Pixar apes swing from trees chased by grisly, disney men with guns and trucks. A large eye tunes the darkness and blinks red upon an aging mountain lion in shadow’s brush.
The sony rays belight foliage in auspicious, plaid-orange hues. This amazon of experience plugs the wanderer into a hard drive of intelligence – a gateway to an encyclopedia of wikis and browsers, expanse enough for any backdrop rooftop audience to be faux-enthralled and eager. There are grumblings in the distance of another engine tromping the scope in search of something new and useless. A rumorous bat upsets the plagiarizing tide of the Atlantic Pea Sea. A snake slinks out of the blossoms clinging to the vines among a macintosh tree and bites the salty flier of the washboard night; cyber venom invades his veins.
The average, homeless, bounding, warrior awakens to find a cold supper on his lap and another syringe in his arm. His remaining gums support his teeth as they bite into the apple. He swallows, sighs, and rests his balding, crescent, once-handsome head on the white pillow. The green fruit tumbles gently out of bed and mutely rolls to the floor.
With that, Steve Jobs is dead.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 12:03 AM UTC
Because I could not stop for Love,
She kindly stopped for me.
And I collapsed into her arms,
Cured then of being free.
In a golden carriage far we drove
Off cliffs and over rises.
Each time I felt sure that I'd died
But Love never lacks surprises.
And we passed Death along the road,
I waved but he would not reply-
I pounded on the windows gold
But he mutely passed me by.
For Love sat not with me inside
But whipped the horses viciously.
I asked her why and she replied,
"Love means no company."
We passed a church and, out behind,
A graveyard glowing in the dusk,
Two lovers' silhouettes defined
Beside a tombstone, clasped in lust.
We passed a darkened house and there
A lanky boy threw pinging pebbles.
And as the light when on, the air
Was filled with midnight funeral bells.
We passed a first kiss, slow and sweet,
Two schoolgirls shamed but still adoring,
And every time their lips would meet
A raven hoarsely tried to sing.
We passed a man and wife's "I do."
And peering through the stained glass window
Pallbearers paused their work to see
The other face of sorrow.
One thought gloats over all I see,
"When all is said and done,"
I muse in silent reverie,
"Love leaves you quite alone."
Because I could not stop for Love,
She kindly stopped for me.
And I will die my deathless death
For all eternity.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 7:03 PM UTC
She labors to smile,
irony draws lines
on her embittered face,
thick dark iron bars,
temporarily cage pain;
yet the risk
the two run is toxic.
soon they 'd have to face it,
unmistakable indications reveal,
her velvet voice over the phone,
conjured up an image,
drastically different,
a sadness now faintly asks
his permission to spread quickly,
confused he postpones, buying time.
guilt, a shaggy, smelly, hound
suspicion, its dominant trait,
lurks sniffing around,
the table they mutely sit,
like prisoners of unburied past
convoluting the plot,
by playing ***** tricks.
the air thickens
chocking both,
the haunt leers, licks its paws in glee
what is its intention?
"You look more or less
like him, my former lover-
I try to erase from memory
by every which way possible,
sorry about that, but i can't help it,
he traded in pain of many kinds
ingeniously, nothing else he did"
she shoots from the hip.
memory of an evil genius
was quickly resurrected by him
from the assortment of stereotypes,
vision of caravans transporting
gun powder kegs of bad memories, flashed
he had a match stick handy.
soon, everything exploded to culminate;
darkness devoured all, breaking limits.
caravans slog towards horizon, one after other still.
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 9:26 AM UTC
Barren halls, devoid of children
echo with the ghostly staccato of gunfire
and the mockingly musical tinkling of spent brass.
Specters of children set free through violence
mutely stand vigil over stained tile and carpet,
shocked by their sudden transition.
Parents, siblings, grandparents and family reel
from the sudden void caused by the senseless
and cowardly actions of a 2nd Amendment zealot’s son.
Christmas presents without recipients sit untouched
in secret places – never to light up the eyes
and faces of eager and happy children.
Flags fly in solemn respect at half-staff
signifying a nation in mourning, yet a nation
so reluctant to address the core of these issues
which have made these crimes so common-place.
Bumbling and incompetent politicians – securely
in the NRA’s and gun-lobby’s pocket are quick to *****
the party lines: “Guns don’t **** people.” “My fork and knife made me fat.”
All the while the mentally tormented and dangerous
continue to take up arms and slaughter innocents –
as apparently their constitutional rights are more sacred
than the life of a first-grader.
How long America, will you dip your pens in the blood of children
and write the laws that take their lives?
How long America, will you wrap yourself in a blood-stained flag
and spew the toxic and hateful lie that guns don’t **** people?
How many more must bleed your ink and feed your mill
before we cry, “enough is enough!!”?
© 2012 Michael Hunter
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 9:47 PM UTC
She couldn't express her grief
but knew this tangible loss,
felt affinity with old bones
a bond with lost loved ones.
She cleaved close to those,
it being in her very nature
a clan thing - family loyalty,
bridging a long span of years.
Her trunk trumpeted, mutely,
while lowering a sister's tusk
softly on the blanched shards
of the ancestor herds, tendered
in this final act of fellowship
from one gentle giant to another.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 12:53 AM UTC
Twilight
Mutely seals day,
Bestows a mellow kiss
And bids farewell. Dwindles away.
Night falls.
Nov 12, 2010
Nov 12, 2010 at 2:26 AM UTC
O useless sky – you disappoint,
brood mutely as I weep and curse;
you've had eternities to meditate, yet
I think of all the answers first.
Jul 28, 2011
Jul 28, 2011 at 7:33 PM UTC
glistening, wet jewels
well in the camber of hazel eyes
like droplets
brimming on the tip
of a dewy green-brown leaf
resting but a moment
holding tight a promise
yet threatening to tumble
as the maelstrom
erupts
in eerie quietness
mutely twisting
whirling
spiraling downwards
then
without a whisper
and in the hush of aloneness
a shining bubble
spills
and bursts
Aug 8, 2011
Aug 8, 2011 at 3:17 AM UTC
Just when we thought
this place couldn't get
any
more
depressing,
a detriment of inadequacy ensues,
and the following hour is spent
beneath a paled,
frosted-blue canvas,
atop a frigid construct
of tether, and steel.
BUT!
As quickly as the dystrophy settled
within minds scarcely caressed
by hallowed slumber,
a frail,
yet,
intensifying light
erupts from the faded line
that separates reality
from ethereality.
As this newly self-empowered
hero of the day
ceases the boundless tundra overhead
with a golden fluorescence
of warmth,
and rapture,
still,
ever-trifling is the southern counterpart.
HARK!
From out of the myriad sheets
of thundercloud gray,
laced with veins of majestic purple,
and glazed with the ensemble
of over-ripened peaches
that blanket the northern skies
of this dawning day
spawns a duet of our mothers'
most
sacred
creation.
HOW MAGNIFICENT!
This spectrum couplet
that champions the veil,
extruding their way out
from the darkest,
most steadfast regions
of our Terran celestial.
Betwixt these valours,
who stand
as beacons of glory
in these most
disparaging of times,
dance a flock
of little
black and white birds,
unveiling to our starving eyes,
ever so eager to feast-
their autumn courtship that,
in its own wonderment,
was that of a
silent
symphony.
LO!
For many a fort night,
we have gazed upon naught
but soot-black sand,
sun-bleached dirt,
and endless foliage,
who's lives have been bled dry
long before even our first wave achieved
boots on ground.
And even as the sun rose higher,
relieving the quietus night
to nothing
but a faded memoir,
so, too,
these masters of vibrancy
shall fade.
BUT!
Even in their last moments of glory,
they triumphed as heralds,
mutely evoking a message
that said:
*'Even at our final breaths,
we shall stand as strong as we did
when She first employed us
into Her heavens.
And until we are completely vanquished,
never; never shall we falter.'*
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
Head bowed, flowing across the water
Like an organic sepulchre,
Lost in the wriggling reeds
It raises its head once more,
Glancing mutely around
It sighs, its breath dying in the snow.
A symbol of light,
The swan is transfigued.
Feb 21, 2017
Feb 21, 2017 at 9:38 PM UTC
Your pacing pulse beats a drumroll in anticipation of the unknown
Yet your soul remains silent in cries as an unborn
Singing lullabies in cries up to the highest note
Still you stand placid,as the calm of the eye in a storm
Mutely you hope the transition to your dreams
Is eternal separation from the real
You rather find harmony in nyctophilia in the night because,
Daily the sun's illumination reminds you of the light you miss in your life
Your salty pillow know who you are.
BUT you built a home in your mind..now you wore a smile,descended the heavens when you fed your subconscious with eternal light. It all sources of your smile.
Now your pillow is dry.
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 3:23 PM UTC
The day a lightning struck my home in September 2010
I read in it signs of bad time grave misfortune’s ill omen
Early morn it fell the night though didn’t hint of a bad weather
Jolting us further a bereaved family my father had died that year.
Spitting fire it chipped a chunk of attic struck dead an arecanut tree
Blew the TV dead lights and fans fled it vented such awesome energy
What had we done to deserve such a deal why befell us the curse
Redoing the roof replacing dead wares it was taxing on our purse.
They say it’s too bad when god goes as mad as to strike your home with lightning
You must have sinned to incur his wrath more misfortune it probably would bring
So we brought a priest for peace and worship we had to appease the deity
In our quest to strike a deal with god’s will was forgotten the arecanut tree.
The house was mended things returned to shape we brokered a peace with god
It all looked fine the mishap forgotten no calamity struck our abode
As a relic of that time stands the arecanut tree without a leaf on its head
Mutely it bears the brunt of god’s fury so is the way it is made.
One autumn morn there was a tapping sound on that tree’s hollowed dead bark
As I peeped through the window I saw a woodpecker its beak was busy at work
So many times I had thought to cut off the tree for it could never grow its root
The bird has got a nest for little ones’ rest god’s will has borne a sweet fruit.
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 6:38 AM UTC
Landscape the fatal solution,
abandoning the pre-world
he takes pleasure
in mutely, and often
spacing out, tipsy, drunk, confident
till the juice runs out.
What made him hold onto such damnable
lilies succumbed
with the raw roots of melancholy?
Never purging the dancers
twirling
through a decade old sound system, they say
"I don't think you know what you did."
***** circling in his eyes, they dance,
"But I'm going to help you."
The dancers rebel
across the floor, down the stairs
---to the dark, his eyes
washed by the caked acid running
down executed cheeks
so helpless, the rhines of a ranting romance
roped idiotically to the gospel grave.
All the ways he sighs,
at all the wrongs snowing down
on his neck. "Nothing about us ever shivered."
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 2:41 AM UTC
Time stands still on the twig.
The sky keeps changing colors,
Blue, dark, ivory, violet -
She grows old, I turn feeble,
Ego, enmity, jealousy fade,
Our stories dry up to the end!
The twig remains there,
Braving rain, bad weather,
Doesn't break, doesn't complain,
Endures mutely the passing of pain,
Standing robust under the changing sky,
Reshaped landscape, agony's cry,
With no wars to fight, no belief to defend,
Just there to see us reach the dead end!
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 2:24 AM UTC
Just a drink of water,
to quench my thirst
for your presence
for ever---
A loving pat on one cheek
for all the love on me you showered,
and softly, ever so softly
on the other cheek
give the parting kiss for keeps.
That's all I ask for,
all the love we shared between us
never fully contained in whispers and kisses
all night conversations and caresses.
Taking a deep breath, look in to my eyes,
and pour all your blues, for me not to forget,
we are a coagulated scented mass, rare
no one in this world could separate.
Let me emulate the wind, that rustles leaves
well before leaving without telling anything
and in return shuffle my hair, like before,
I will leave smiling, without thinking.
even when my heart is in fire hissing:
"Ah! this is how it all ends, never to repeat"
I 've learned the art of containing pain,
quite early in my life, without much effort,
a white fluffy haired pup,my dad's first gift,
that made happy beyond my little heart's content,
the one I bathed cared and fed, day and night
left for ever, in one cold after noon...
heart broken I wept, tried to wake him up
Dad consoled "Let's buy another".It didn't help, a bit.
But when the pet parakeet, that flew around our home
was made his meal by our own rouge cat
the scattered wings, feathers and bones scared,
I didn't cry or panic, the pain died down within
I was learning a lesson then for a path strewn with thorns.
I'll walk away straight, with a smile,
like many smiles went past you,
but now, I know you'll whimper,
But don't, please don't shed that drop of tear
at the corner of your eye, hold it there,
it'll mutely tell you about a love divine, for ever.
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 9:39 AM UTC
He created a night for him
with the dark metaphors
his poetry tossed on to the air;
from its ember buried under ashes
oozed little by little,
two drops of scared light.
Alone, in the cocoon of the memory
of her words, he distilled and drained
the magic potion of poetic expression.
In it was ingested, the intensity
of sudden lightening
that burns down everything
in to ashes
like the tides that occur high and low
what if ,at will, single source secretes
both poison and nectar?
with your eyes mutely speaking of desire
you are deft in signalling both---
the ascent of love, that creates in me
the instant capillary rise of passion
and
love's descend, as if the monsoon has dissipated
and just a sprinkling announcing rejection!
who are you, reveal your true face
poetic trance at the moment of my inspiration
or dark poetry, gushing out on it's own
from a secret spring, deeply hidden?
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 6:36 AM UTC
Is it my imagination
Or are there far fewer birds singing ?
What dawn do they mutely await
Through the long night of terror ?
Silence speaks of pervasive fear
And of the loss of ancestral nests.
The protector has taken an axe to the trees.
Trees fall; the earth shakes.
Raucous cries of dispossession supplant birdsong
As the khaki-clad hunters *** sitting ducks
While Zeus' swans feast on Leda's flesh.
Rejoice, my countrymen, for the prophecy has come true
-The state has indeed withered away.
Oct 10, 2011
Oct 10, 2011 at 7:13 AM UTC
A lone paddler
within rumoured holy waters,
blessed by the touch
of a vacant apathetic god,
she gaped mutely like a halibut,
lips parted comically in a silent wail,
the clockwork functions
of her jaw,
forced teeth to reacquaint as sisters,
grinding together
in discomfort,
as lukewarm fluids rippled
around her thighs.
In this silent act of cleansing,
sin's hallmark should have faded
from her skin,
still her father believed
'her to be the devil's young'
due to scientific witchcraft,
her concoctions to lure demons
to their dinner table.
'I'm doing this for you, darling.'
her father reassured
with an earnest glint in his eyes,
madness paced hungrily,
encircling pupils in a territorial manner,
delusions of God himself watching
over his daughter,
with tears streaming down golden cheeks,
repeated within his fragile mind.
Unsure, the girl remained standing,
the embodiment of Mary
with her arms spread like angel wings,
did she dare disobey
her father's wishes,
and feel the leather belt against
her rear,
or reject her own troubled heart,
for her father's sake?
May 9, 2012
May 9, 2012 at 4:19 PM UTC
Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love,
And in that sophistry, Oh, thou dost prove
Too subtle: Foole, thou didst not understand
The mystic language of the eye nor hand:
Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air
Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair:
Nor by th’ eyes water call a malady
Desperately hot, or changing feverously.
I had not taught thee, then, the Alphabet
Of flowers, how they devisefully being set
And bound up might with speechless secrecy
Deliver errands mutely, and mutually.
Remember since all thy words used to be
To every suitor, Ay, if my friends agree;
Since, household charms, thy husband’s name to teach,
Were all the love tricks that thy wit could reach;
And since, an hour’s discourse could scarce have made
One answer in thee, and that ill arrayed
In broken proverbs and torn sentences.
Thou art not by so many duties his,
That from the world’s Common having severed thee,
Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see,
As mine: who have with amorous delicacies
Refined thee into a blisful Paradise.
Thy graces and good words my creatures be;
I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee,
Which Oh, shall strangers taste? Must I alas
Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass?
Chaf wax for others’ seals? break a colt’s force
And leave him then, being made a ready horse?
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